


Good Enough

by I_Write_Sins_and_Tragedies



Series: Always Gold To Me [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Bro is actually a decent human being in this, Brotherly Bonding, Cal isn't possessed, Child Abandonment, Fluff, Gen, Happy Ending, platonic Striders, sadstuckish but only in the first half, self worth issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-24 05:10:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20700473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Write_Sins_and_Tragedies/pseuds/I_Write_Sins_and_Tragedies
Summary: Why weren’t you good enough? Aren’t good enough? It’s not a very cool question to ask yourself, but it still burns at you more often than you’d like to admit.





	Good Enough

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of a disclaimer that Dave does have a somewhat unhealthy level of hero worship towards Bro in this, but it's less a product of abuse in this case and more his own self-doubt causing him to idealize the only significant male role model in his life. He'll grow out of it ;p

Why weren’t you good enough? Aren’t good enough? It’s not a very cool question to ask yourself, but it still burns at you more often than you’d like to admit.

You haven’t admitted anything. What are you supposed to say? How could you say anything, really, and give voice to those pathetic self-doubts? You often wish you were more like Bro. Bro, who always exudes confidence; who knows his worth and makes it clear that anyone who doesn’t can fuck right off. Bro, who’s always been better, faster, stronger than you, no matter how hard you try to catch up.

Fuck, do you try. You try to be good enough for him in everything you do. You try by keeping up perfect grades, to the point where you were moved ahead of your peers. You try by practicing your katas every day, rain or shine (or excessive, oppressively warm shine), roof or your room. You try by pushing yourself to your limits in every strife, until you’re barely able to breathe and even less capable of standing. You try by making song after song, mixing beats until even your impossibly high standards are satisfied.

You try so damn hard in everything that you do, and most days, it still doesn’t feel like enough. It sure as hell doesn’t feel like enough today. Another day of putting everything you have into a strife, only to eventually wind up so exhausted that you’ve collapsed onto your back and can’t remember how to move your limbs.

You’re shaking, you think, though it’s hard to tell how much when you’re still struggling for breath like a fish out of water. Sweat runs rivulets down your skin, matting your hair to your forehead and making your clothes stick to you uncomfortably. The sun is beating down hard, and you’re sure that in a minute, you’ll start to burn. You sincerely doubt that you’ll be able to move within the next five minutes, much less one.

Bro’s shadow falls across you, and if you just barely tip your head back, you can see him standing over you, poker face same as it’s always been. Despite your desperate need for air, you force your lips shut to mimic it, breathing hard still through your nose as quietly as you can.

He shakes his head at you, subtle but soul-crushing in his disapproval. What pride you had in your improvements and small victories this strife drain away with that one tiny motion, until the corners of your eyes sting and you’re thanking gods you don’t believe in that your shades hide the broken vulnerability beneath them. You’ve been getting better; so much better than you used to be, but it’s still just not enough. Even when you can almost level with Bro for half the fight, you’re still just not enough.

"Breathe, dumbass." Bro chides. He crouches down beside you in one enviably fluid motion, and guides your mouth back open with a surprisingly gentle thumb on your chin. You could resist. Should, for the sake of your dignity. But you’ve never been good at saying no to his orders, and that first easy lungful of air is so good that you forget about arguing at all in favor of trying to get enough oxygen back into your body.

As soon as you get on that, Bro slides his arms under you and hefts you up like it’s practically no effort for him, even though you just finished an intense workout together. Maybe it was just intense for you, though. Maybe fourteen years of training hasn't amounted to much.

But then Bro lets out just a faint grunt as he stands, and if you concentrate, you think you can feel a slight tremor in his arms as he carries you towards the stairs. That manages to stay your worries somewhat. Enough so that you can barely care that he’s carrying you like a bride over the threshold. Getting out of the sun is honestly a pretty big relief anyway.

The apartment is gloriously air-conditioned, and you put up no fight when Bro sets you down on the futon. You’ve just about got your breathing under control when he flash-steps away, returning with a damp cloth a moment later. You fumble with shaking hands to help him pull off your t-shirt, and as soon as it’s gone, he starts wiping you down. The cloth is wonderfully cool against your skin, and you can’t fully stop the relieved sigh that makes its way out of you when it starts leeching the heat out of you.

Bro leaves when the fabric’s gone lukewarm, and you think that’s the end of it for all of five seconds before he appears back at your side. You’re still shaky as he sits you up, but it’s so worth it when the freshly-cooled cloth glides over your back. The sweat and grime is swept away and replaced by a pleasant chill where the rotating fan’s air meets damp skin, and you’re just about cooled off at last.

The cloth is refreshed one last time, and before you know it, Bro’s perched on the futon beside you, swiping it over your forehead. A part of you, bigger than you want to admit, wants to just close your eyes and revel in the kind treatment. Bro always makes sure you’re good after strifes, but he’s rarely this attentive. Usually it’s only when blood is accidentally drawn that he’ll go into mother hen mode, and you know he didn’t nick you anywhere or you’d be sitting in that bathroom already, looking at the inside of a first aid kit as he tends to you.

Whatever part of you was comfortable with this quickly recedes when Bro slides your shades off. You’re vulnerable without those. Such an open book that you may as well be ‘See Jane Run’. Especially to him; him, who can read you most days even with eyewear and an almost-perfect poker face on to hide you. You shut your eyes almost instinctively when your barrier is taken away, and you’re thankful that all Bro does is take advantage of it to wipe over the rest of your face.

"Somethin’ bothering you, kid?" Fuck. Of course he knows. Of course he waited to ask you when he’s got your shades off and a hand practically cupping your cheek. When you don’t have a hope in hell of lying to him convincingly.

Sure as hell doesn’t mean you won’t try, though.

"No? Why the fuck would something be bothering me?" You can keep your voice level, at least. That’s something you can control. More so than your eyes as they flicker nervously behind closed lids. You won’t open them, though. As soon as you open them, you truly lose any semblance of believability.

Somehow, you can still sense Bro’s frown.

"I know ya better’n that, Dave." Shit, he’s pulling out your actual name. "Spill it."

You don’t want to spill it. You know what to say to end this conversation, or at least stall it ‘til another time. You know that he’ll back off if you tell him to, respect your privacy and shit.

The problem is that for some godforsaken reason, another part of you does want to spill it. To stop hiding this ugly wound of yours, peel back your shell until all of your soft, squishy insides are bare to the world. To Bro. Same difference really, where opinions are concerned. There’s nobody’s approval that you long for more than his.

When your eyes flicker open, you know hiding is a lost cause. Every scrap of fragile self doubt and vulnerability is on display, and you know Bro can see all of it. He takes you in for a second and then lifts his own shades, tucking them onto the bill of his hat. It leaves him half as open to you as you are to him, but the gesture helps all the same.

"Talk to me." He says, and it comes across more as a prompt than a demand.

"It’s stupid." You answer reflexively with the same words you’ve told yourself time and time again. You’re sure he can tell as much, and he shakes his head.

"Don’t care, tell me anyway." You don’t want to.

You do.

The words are on the tip of your tongue, but they catch when you try to form them. It sounds so pathetic in your head. It makes you feel like a needy, pouting child, and you can’t even think of a way to phrase this in a way that doesn’t sound like it.

Bro is patient as he watches you grapple with yourself, apparently privy to the fact that you need some time. He sets the warmed cloth aside and shuffles around to lean back against the futon. His arm slides down to your shoulders and tugs, until you’re pressed against his side. It’s like you’re a little kid again, suddenly so much smaller than him; small enough that you should be intimidated, but only feel safe under the secure weight of his arm. His breathing is deep and measured like it’s always been, consistent and reassuring, like a living metronome, and the familiarity of it finally chips through your walls.

"It’s stupid." You repeat, leaning against him until your head’s resting against his shoulder. But your words aren’t a denial anymore, they’re a request for reassurance, and Bro answers it without missing a beat.

"Doesn’t matter. I’ll listen."

You don’t doubt him.

"...Why wasn’t I good enough?" You feel him tense and jerk slightly underneath you. You know he’s half a second away from demanding clarification, so you give it to him before he asks. "I mean, fuck, whoever my parents were didn’t even try to get past stage one. Like they took one look and went ‘hell no’. They probably spent longer picking out a dumpster than they did looking at cradles and like... Logically I know it’s their faults for being pieces of shit, alright, I’m not denying that. But holy fuck there’s gotta be something wrong with me in this equation if that’s how they felt, and I can’t figure out what the hell it is."

Your hands are shaking again as you articulate them with your words, and this time you don’t think you can blame them on the strife. You didn’t expect to be spilling your guts like this, but now that you have it’s starting to dig up those painful emotions that you’ve spent so long burying.

You haven’t even touched on how inadequate you feel next to Bro, how badly you want (need) his approval. You don’t think you could ever voice those feelings to him, honestly, but what you’ve already said is fine. It’s enough, it gets the point across. And now you’re sitting here belly up with your shell peeled back, waiting for his response.

"Y’ can’t figure it out ‘cause there’s nothin’ _to_ figure out, Dave. Sometimes people are shitty, and it’s got nothin’ to do with you." His arm tightens around your shoulders, squishing you comfortably against his side, before he continues on. "My parents didn’t wanna keep me either, ya know."

That causes you to blink a little and actually look up at him again because no, you didn’t know. You can’t actually imagine someone not wanting Bro the way your parents evidently didn’t want you, and that disbelief must show on your face, because he crooks a wry half grin at you and nods.

"’S true. Shucked me off t’ foster care and never looked back. Can’t say anybody I landed with took much’ve a shining to me, either."

You take a minute to process this, because frankly you really need to, and Bro gives you the silence you need while you think. His fingers idly start to card through your hair, always in need of something to occupy themselves with, and the repetitive slide and pull of them helps to tease the lingering tension out of you. You slump more comfortably against his warm side, and his arm constricts around you a little more in turn.

"Their loss." You eventually say, because you feel the need to reassure him despite the fact that he’d say it’s not your job to. Despite the fact that he seems to be way more over it than you are. If you’re being honest, you say those words more for yourself than you do for him.

"Damn right it is." Bro nods, you can tell from the slight jostle of the motion from where your head’s settled. There’s a comfortable pause, and then he nudges you slightly. "Don’t worry ‘bout what your bastard parents were thinking. Y’ were good enough for me."

That sends a thrill through your whole body and floods your chest with warmth. Those six words are all you’ve ever wanted to hear from Bro, and now that you have, you can’t fight the grin that’s spread itself across your face. You should be embarrassed to be so elated from so little, but it isn’t ‘little’ for you. It’s exactly what you’ve needed, almost as much as you need breathing, and you finally have it.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are extremely welcome and appreciated <3


End file.
